Boaty McBoatface, why not?

I’m into research and I like boats, both serious boats  for research and boats for recreational use even if they sometimes aren’t serious. I don’t like boats with stuck up names!

English is not my native language and most names sounds more promising if they are originate from another language, but I know there are many names much worse than Boaty McBoatface. I also hope to think that the ship and it's tasks are bigger than the name of the ship, any name.

I wish Draken Harald Hårfagre fair winds!

Updated April 26 2016:

The world´s largest viking ship Draken Harald Hårfagre has now left Haugesund, Norway and sails towards Canada and USA via Iceland, Greenland. They will cross the North Atlantic Ocean, to explore the world as the Vikings did a thousand years ago. On their webpage (see link above) you can follow the ship's progress.

The 33-person strong crew will most likely have a exciting (and challenging) voyage with the harsh conditions upon them all the time and with only a tent as protection when sleeping. I'm not a history buff, but this project I like!

Bon voyage and fair winds!

Maritime security: information has gone missing?

I’ve followed maritime security with a systematic approach since 2010. In my research, and when discussing maritime security measures with ship operators, reliable and systematic descriptions of incidents are important. Without such information also I’m left with nothing but guesswork. I’ve over the years come across information or descriptions of incidents that doesn’t appear in the statistics or correspond with the general beliefs.

Case 1. The first discrepancy is that one about the effectiveness of armed guards on ships which is by many claimed to be 100% effective off Somalia. I’ve heard many say “a ship with armed guards have never been successfully attacked by pirates (off Somalia)”. This is off course not a true statement:

Firstly: at sea (and in many other situations) nothing is 100% except the fact that you don’t have all the information.

Secondly: I’ve heard a couple of very reliable accounts about incidents off Somalia from different years, situations and ships describing successful boarding’s on ships with armed guards. A typical end to such an incident is that the armed guards throw their weapons over board when they realize they are beaten and the company providing the guards takes responsibility over (not) reporting the incident.

Thirdly: The people typically making claims about armed guards being the only 100% effective measure (ship operator executives) should be smart enough to know that the claim isn’t true.

Fourth: In other areas, such as off Nigeria, even the official effectiveness of armed guards is far from 100%.

I don’t know the correct figure for the effectiveness of armed guards off Somalia (it is however high) and I’ve not tried to investigate it either. My point is that the case of armed guards is an example of how poorly the truth sometimes is treated when reporting maritime security incidents.

Case 2. For a coming publication I searched for records of incidents off West Africa 2012 and 2013 that wasn’t included in the official ICC International Maritime Bureau (IMB [https://icc-ccs.org/]) statistics. I found some records illustrating that incidents without consequences, i.e., such as a suspicious approach without boarding, not always was reported. This is not surprising, for many seafarers this as seen as a normal, but unpleasant, day in that area. I.e., nothing to report.

More surprising was the high profile incidents I found where the paper trail was disappearing fast. With high profile I here mean European or North American ship operators in combination with severe consequences such as kidnapping. For a couple of such incidents (I found four) no records at all were included in the IMB incidents description even though there were newspaper articles describing at least some aspects of the incidents.

I understand that reporting such incidents isn’t your first priority or sometimes not even possible during an attack. But it should be in the industry’s interest that at least some basic aspects such as date, time, position, and consequence in general terms are reported in the days or weeks after. This to make sure that the situation at sea can be captured, communicated and reacted on as correctly as possible. Especially given the sea blindness shore based decision-makers seem have.

It takes (at least) two to tango

I, as many else, have noticed the US information about the interactions between the USS Donald Cook and two Russian SU-24 airplanes on internarial water in the Baltic Sea. According to the New YorkTimes who bases their information on White House sources the planes “violated professional military norms over the Baltic Sea when one of its planes flew ‘dangerously close’ to an American ship and a Polish aircraft”.

Based on the video footage it’s clear that the basic information is true, but how to define “professional military norms” and “dangerously close” is off course debatable and is as much up to culture as anything. I’m convinced that the definition of these concepts differ between US and Russia and most probably also within US such as between an US navy pilot and a politician in the White House.

The Baltic Sea a more quite day. Photo © Hans Liwång.

The flight has also by Congressman Adam Kinzinger been described as a practice attack. Based on my knowledge it does not look like an attack, it looks like a message being communicated as well as a photo opportunity. The message being communicated by the Russian planes to me looks very much the same as the message most military forces is communicating in general and more specifically by USS Donald Cook by being in the Baltic Sea.

There is a DANGEROUS dance being performed in the Baltic Sea with more than two dancers.

When do we know if something is a problem?

I’ve written about this before, both when discussing the implications of an unidentified submarine in the Stockholm waters (described in Should we in Sweden be surprised when we learn that there are foreign submarines in the Stockholm archipelago? Hardly!) and when I try to decide if my bike route to work is dangerous or not (two posts: (i) Risky business on land and (ii) One accident doesn’t mean thing is risky).

Now, a couple of days ago I witnessed the result of one more bike accident at the very spot described before. This time I estimate that the accident was a result of the sharp turns in combination with the curb stones collecting water that had frozen during the night, i.e., the physical layout created a hazardous condition.

So, the question is: I have a record of a very low number of incidents (in the submarine case one incident, and in the bike lane case two incidents), can I judge (calculate) the likelihood of this being evidence of a problem?

Note: In these cases I have a record of the incidents and the number of incidents and conditions for each incident are known. I don’t base it on hearsay or for example on newspaper articles talking about many biking accidents (which could be ten persons describing what could be the same accident). For the submarine incident this means that I trust the description the Swedish Armed Forces gave regarding some basic aspect of the incidents.

Judging if the incidents are a one-time event or evidence of a bigger problem came in the submarine case down to estimating how likely it is that we observe a submarine if it is in the area. In the biking case observing is not a problem, i.e., it is about how often we are on the scene.

For being able to calculate total number of bike accidents we need more information. In short we need to estimate how often I’m on site and what that mean.

Calculation example: Rush-hour accidents (in one intersection)
No of observed incidents: 2

Observation time per day [minutes]: 1

Observations per week [per week]: 9
Average incident observation window [min] (duration of accident): 10

Total period [years]: 1.5

Weeks per year [weeks]: 46
Days per week [days]: 5
Hours per day, rush-hour [hours]: 2

=> Total period [minutes]: 41400

=> Total observation time [minutes]: 6831
=> Observation percentage: 17%

Estimated no of incidents in total (from observation percentage): 12

Bikers per minute (during rush-hour): 2

=> Sample size, calculated [no of bikers]: 13662

=> Incident per observed biker: 0.01%

Statistical error margin (given sample size and a 95% confidence and normal distribution): 0.02%
=> Number of incidents: 0.01% ±0.02%, i.e., between -5* and 29

*) we cannot have negative number of accidents, i.e., assumption about normal is distribution wrong (wrong left tail). Two incidents are observed, i.e., these two could statistically be the only two

=>                                                   

Minimum number of incidents (the observed ones): 2

Expected number of incidents: 12

Maximum number of incidents (given stat. error margin): 29

Per year

Minimum number of incidents: 1

Expected number of incidents: 8

Maximum number of incidents: 19

But if this 1 to 18 accidents per year in one intersection a problem? Is it too often? If we put that question in a safety (risk) perspective we also need to know the consequence of an incident. I estimate that one out 20 incidents lead to serious injuries. The probability for exactly N injuries is then described by the binomial distribution. Given this frequency, the expected number of incidents and the binomial distribution we can calculate the probability for exactly one, two, three… serious accidents per year. Then we can calculate a FN-curve for each of the three number incidents above (1, 8 and 19 per year) where N is the number of persons seriously injured per year in this intersection.

FN-curve describing the probability for N or more serious injured persons per year if there is one accident per year (filled circle); eight accidents per year (circle); and 19 accidents per year (squares). (C) Hans Liwång 2016.

However, to my knowledge there are no FN-criteria for one intersection, so we still do not know if this is a problem or not. I however note that the probability for at least one seriously injured person per year is close to one which sounds high for one insignificant intersection (I pass at least 40 of that size per day).

The most crucial figure in the calculation above is the average duration of an incident. Note also that if my wife, who also twice a day pass the same spot on her bike, tell me that she had an accident on this spot I could not include that information because it is outside my sample.

I promise to get back with a maritime case complementing the FN-curve I did when describing that the risk for refugees in the Mediterranean so high it is intolerable.

ROV carrying explosives near Nord Stream pipeline

I've talked about tension and how for example the tension in and above the Baltic Sea increases and therefore also the probability of security incidents increases.

On November 7 (2015) an unmanned remotely operated vehicle (ROV) was found on the sea bed in the Baltic. It was found on international water, but within the Swedish economic zone. What makes this story extra juicy is that:
(1) the ROV was found not far from the gas pipeline Nord Stream going from Russia to Germany, and
(2) the ROV is carrying explosives.

This type of ROVs are often used in mine clearing operations (of new as well as old mines). In such operations the mine is first localized with sensor from afar and the detonated under controlled circumstances with dispensable ROVs like this one (used by many nations).

Unfortunately the Baltic is full of old WWII mines and unexploded ammunitions. Clearing mines in the Baltic (especially in the eastern part) is a long going tradition since Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became independent states in the beginning of the nineties and the Swedish Navy has taken part at least since the mid nineties as an exercise with an important result. However, the exercise became more political as a result of the Ukraine crisis even though clearing WWII mines has only friendly implications.

The relative large extent of mine clearing over a long period of time in the Baltic makes it very possible that the now found ROV is a left over from such operations. Therefore, the most likely explanation is that the ROV is a result of peaceful intentions. However, I've seen discussion on the internet trying to make it out to be something else. The point of such discussions can be questioned!

Swedish boarders has been violated at least 42 times over the last five years

Based on a request from the Swedish news paper Dagens Nyheter  the Swedish Department of Defence has released a list of the documented violations of Swedish borders in the air and at sea for the years 2011 to 2014. In total the list contains 42 incidents and 16 countries (out of which 12 are NATO countries).

The list is based on information provided by the Swedish Armed Forces and new a praxis in force since October first 2015 makes the information available to the public. This new praxis is mostly a result of political needs to put defense issues on the agenda.

The amount of violations has increased from three in 2011 to twelve in 2014 (not counting the submarine in the Stockholm Archipelago in October 2014) and so far eleven times in 2015.

Personally I don't want to put too much focus on the violations because every serious nation will train their forces and easiest way to do this is from your country and outwards, i.e. towards your neighbors. During such training an over eager pilot can easily turn away to late even though there is no aggression involved.

The highest number of violations are performed by the US, seven in five years. Russia only six during the same period. This in itself is nothing to get all fired up about and also Sweden manages to do the same to our neighbors. However, two things worries me:
- Russia does not acknowledge their mistakes which could lead to problems if there was a more serious incident; and
- the increased numbers of incidents is a proof of more activity and probably also more tension over the Baltic Sea.

With more activity (and tension) comes an increase in the probability of something going wrong or being interpreted the wrong way which could lead to consequences, i.e. there is an increase in security risk on and above the Baltic Sea.